Wednesday, 23 January 2008

Hot Haute from the Bookshelf Fashionistas

Armani and Galliano ain't got nuffing on these ladies. The cats behind the catwalks may not know it yet, but next season's fashions are ba-ba-ba-bushka to the max. That's right, you cool cretins, get out the bodypaint and start lacquering on that folk art floralia. Polka dot headscarves are taking ears by storm, from Petersburg to Vladivostok, and when it comes to shoes, shoes, shoes, there's no going past the invisible foot. No more waist cinching, 'cause convex is where it's at. But don't throw away your gym membership: state-of-the-art corsetry alone won't unscrew your body into two separate wooden pieces. Make a moue and paint your cheeks rosy. Dolls are Russian into this one.

I noticed when I was last in Melbourneo that there was a shop which seemed to sell very little other than babooshka dolls. I wondered how that worked out for them. No offence to your fine ladies, of course, who clearly have the fire inside. Bah to Cleo & co!

Oh Maria, that's so lovely- a Clinton Babooshka doll! I was so delighted when I find out about the President and First Lady action figures and the special bone china set for each First Lady, but that tops it all!

Good old decadent weak liberal West. It has its advantages. (Though there's no denying, that mid-century Russian marching music's enough to make my knees go wobbly.)

Speaking of wobbly knees and music: Kate Bush! I saw an interview with her once, and it seems she didn't realise that "Babushka" means grandmother; just thought it was a sassy name (as, indeed, it is).

Maria, I can't approve of such corruptions of the Russian doll. I've seen a Soviet dictator set too (Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, etc) - a veritable abomination unto the good wholesome values of portliness, maternity and fractals, embodied in ye traditional babushkas.

Photos, if available, please! I have an Edgar Allan Poe doll and it's craptacular, but it's just made of cloth.

I love Tim's idea about using Babooshka dolls to make an argument about philosophical influences. There was a set of late nineteenth-century Babooshka dolls on Antiques Roadshow recently (apparently the craze really took off in the late-nineteenth-early twentieth century), not all female. Apparently it's supposed to be a game for little girls- you put a coin or some treat in one of the dolls and your playmate has to guess which doll it's in.

About Me

Alexis, Baron von Harlot, is self-appointed Chronicler Laureate to the principality of Lalor, Victoria, Australia, including the lesser adjoining suburbs of Epping and Thomastown, and wherever she happens to be, really. These annals relay her keenly observed observations on matters floral, faunal, anthropological, protozoic, and thingy, with reference to the backyard, down the road, geopolitics, and the complete works of Jeanette Winterson.